Hi. We are a design/style LA based company specializing in mixing eclectic styles on moderate budgets. Also we have a strange amount of fun blogging about all our design and style adventures. Right now I’m happy to say that I’m Target’s home spokesperson, bringing accessible/stylish design to the masses.

Growing Up and Growing Into A New Room

Charlie’s (big kid) Room Styled to Sell

Charlie’s room is now a big kids room. And I am now a puddle of ‘mom’. We are moved out of that house, but I am still writing the content, memories flooding in of how wonderful those years were with that wallpaper. Charlie misses it and it motivates me to make his room in our new house super special, too. If you are on the fence about having a really fun wallpaper for your kids and are worried that it will be too stimulating, I’m here to say it’s not and that they love it. Even kids know when something is special.

For selling we styled this room more for a big kid since we needed to bring the crib over to our new house. Plus we were doing this bedding series with Target that would look so much better on a daybed than a crib, obviously, so we switched things up and man it looks good.

Everything is from the Pillowfort collection from Target. It’s just so gosh darn cute. We put in a daybed to help the room look bigger than a twin bed would have.

If only their toys really looked like that for more than 90 seconds after a shoot. Those little animals can really ruin a room pretty darn quickly.

The video gives the best styling tips, better than I could (even though I did it). Plus I was wrangling four kids tonight, making them a dope fort, which took 45 minutes, for them to spend approximately 6 minutes max inside, pretending that they barely liked it. It’s fine because look how pulled together this room is.

On the other side of the room we took the more real estate photo – pulled back and informational.

I love that little babyletto dresser from Target and can you believe that ladder is from there? I could use a blanket ladder in every room. It’s like a good pair of underwear – solves problems without adding bulk. When you start making underwear analogies you may need to just pull the covers over your tired head and call it a night.

It’s a pretty darn great room. That wallpaper made the rest of the room so easy to design. It had enough negative space that it still felt so bright and happy even though it was a bold paper.

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I wish these posts had a bit more depth, like maybe insight from a realtor? Kinda feels like a big ol’ Target ad as it is. I know even slightly negative thoughts feel like too much right now, but I’m a daily reader and I’ve been thinking it since this series started.

i have to agree. although i don’t necessarily need realtor insight for charlie’s room, i think the pillowfort stuff looks really cheap with that high-end wallpaper, rug, etc. maybe it’s just because i know how amazing the room used to look? i like it when the target stuff is randomly placed and well thought out (like your collaboration with them used to be) opposed to the whole post being about it and not calling it an ad. i do LOVE any posts about the old house though so keep em coming!

completely disagree about it looking cheap. i work in sales in a high-end furniture showroom and am around expensive furniture all day, and while certain things are worth splurging on, everything doesn’t need to be expensive for a room to look nice. i.e. our sofas are amazing, but we once had marble candle holders that were ~$5,000 and I found nearly identical ones at Target for $20. Did they have the extravagant backstory of being handcrafted in Italy? Nope. But they looked good.

I love that Emily has an amazing ability to mix high and low, creating rooms that are both aspirational as well as attainable and relatable.

I disagree about the Pillowfort stuff looking cheap in this room…it blends beautifully and there is a real whimsical vibe here which would make it a very relatable option for most small children. Mixing high and low end items can make a room more affordable AND many times make it more interesting. The home decor market is huge these days and there are many ways to successfully make a home unique and beautiful without breaking the bank if you shop with an open mind.

I love the pillow fort items both in this room and in my daughter’s room. Her room had beautiful expensive bedding and lovely finishes but when the quilt died, I didn’t want to replace it with another expensive one. Emily’s showcasing of the target items made me aware of the line and I got her that nice quilt for $30! It looks super cute amid the pricey stuff and serves to fill the gap til she’s older and we go with an older girl look.

Your house is beautiful and this room is amazing, but I’m so curious about the whole staging of the house. It seems to be opposite of what I’ve heard about selling a house. Wouldn’t this room make it harder for the potential homebuyer to see themselves in the house or to picture another use for the room? Maybe it’s different in your area than in mine (Midwest), or maybe it’s more for your portfolio and website?

I think the whimsical wallpaper in this room makes it harder to style for anything other than a kid’s room. So unless they were going to take the wallpaper down I think leaning into the kids vibe makes sense.

Wow Joy! Thanks for responding we love the wall paper so much! It really is as Emily said, kids do know when something’s special, my daughter sure does. Love the way you hung your art-it’s inspiring! Hope I can be that fearless and go for it! Thanks again!

One comment was that the Target stuff looks cheap against the lovely wallpaper. I’m a designer, work with high end stuff all the time and am amazed at how good Target things, especially their soft goods look. Not cheap at all. Another obvious point is that while you want yor staging to look great you don’t want to spend a tone of money on it. Right? Right.

I thought I’d ask a political question on a non-politcal post to see if my question can be noticed.
Emily, and anyone else: You are for health coverage for all, as am I. But I am really feeling the strain on my loyalty to the concept as my healthy family of 4 has seen our insurance rates more than double in 3 years time. Two years ago there were over 20 gold plans to choose from on the Marketplace for my area and now there are two. And they cost more than my mortgage and would be triple the cost of better insurance three years ago. At my income, I would receive a couple hundred dollars a month of premium tax credit making these plans approximately $1300 per month. Yes, I am lucky to live in an area where a mortgage (not including property tax and insurance is feasibly $1300 per month. The cheapest bronze plans on the market are over $850 per month…for max out of pockets and deductibles of close to $13,000!

It has been sad and weird to hit the point where my own family is getting squeezed so much I am having to abandon some of the principles I thought I held dear. This is the first year in my adult life that I have contemplated going without insurance. I am starting to feel resentful toward my neighbor with severe issues from diabetes who still eats like crap. I am starting to side eye my co-worker who knew she’d have a premie baby and yet couldn’t give up smoking…I don’t like this self interested, judgey person I am becoming. Does anyone else feel this way? Is anyone else getting squeezed so hard they are becoming bitter toward the dream of “coverage for all?”
Is your health insurance truly affordable for you Emily? Sigh. I was a big fan of the ACA at first, but now find myself in the camp of finding the one palatable thing about Trump to be the fact that he might burn it to the ground. It is hard to imagine it being worse for me personally.
Signed,
Girl who used to care deeply about others.

Do you live in a state that didn’t accept subsidies? The CEO of my insurance company (Blue Cross/Anthem) makes 52,000 an HOUR. Why is my insurance so high again? It is so complicated and there is no “perfect” answer. Personally I would love to see us join countries with better health outcomes and happiness indexes and provide universal coverage and real support for working families. But our government has vastly different spending priorities. I hope you will call your Senator and Congressperson and share your story with them.

Our insurance has gone way up and we are not on ACA, we get insurance through work and have had more or less the same plan for years. I think ACA is expensive because it has a disproportionately large group of people who need care (people who are healthy are not signing up). But the real problem is private insurance companies, who act as middlemen between us and our doctors, taking a huge chunk of money for themselves.

ACA was always a huge compromise to placate the status quo insurance system. What we need in the US in Universal Health Care, which is Medicare for all, and if you want more features/service, then you can pay for supplemental. This takes the insurance industry out of the game entirely.

I have friends who are doctors, and they support ACA, and they would prefer a universal payment system.

Another observation I have is that I have been dealing with infertility and IVF for a decade now, with zero insurance coverage. Infertility is largely not covered by insurance, and has gotten cheaper over the last two decades. I am sure it is large part due to the fact that consumers feel the pinch of having to pay for services, and therefore doctors have to learn how to be efficient. Market competition has helped the costs in that area tremendously. Same thing has happened in within plastic surgery.

I know when I have insurance coverage for something…I really don’t care what it costs…because I ain’t paying it.

Sadly, I live in a state that did accept subsidies and plans here are still that expensive. I thought I would ask a wider range of people across the country what their experience has been, because within my sphere, (I am a CPA, so I have to talk to hundreds of people about their insurance), my story is completely common. Middle class people (avg 75K -120K for a family of four are getting hit SO hard: Crappy insurance that is the equivalent or higher than our mortgages.

If you wonder why people who think “change” in the form of Oompa Loompa Trump might be tolerable…here is one answer, sadly.

Wow weirdly relevant to me today. I just left my job (and ergo lost insurance), but I’m young and have no health issues so I was comfortable being without it for awhile. But I just found out that because of Obamacare if I don’t get health insurance, I’ll be fined $700 for not having it. Crazy that they are punishing people (many who can’t afford health insurance) by fining them an amount they probably can’t afford. Give people the option, fine, but don’t force it upon everyone. Now as someone who never goes to the doctor, I’m essentially just going to be paying for everyone else to go.

Paige, I totally feel for you, as I have effectively been “priced” out of the market and had to think about the penalty this year as well.

I just want to explain the political rationale for the penalty: The ACA was only ever designed to be affordable if healthy young people signed up to subsidize the sick who were previously denied coverage. The last administration overestimated how many healthy young people would be willing to sign up. This is why premiums for us healthy stooges have soared. It is a fatal flaw in ACA that would have had to be fixed under a Hillary admin as well.

As for the penalty, it is meant to coerce the healthy and young into buying that insurance. Yes, it seems unfair, but here’s the thing: If healthy, young, you who is too young to have a big bank account gets hit by a bus tomorrow, the hospital will not turn you away. They will spare no expense to save your life. They are bound by Hippocratic oath to do so. You do not have health insurance, so “someone” will have to pay for the hundreds of thousands of dollars that will be racked up for you, and then ultimately written off by the hospital. Uninsured people do “cost” society a lot. This is why I always head scratched when people were so against ACA to begin with. We were already paying through the nose (as a society, in the form of high healthcare costs) to pay for uninsured people’s emergency care! So unfortunately, us having to pay a $700 per year penalty is the cost of living in a society that at least gives emergency care to all people insured or not.

Paige, I think it is like taxes, we pay taxes to pay for roads and parks and other things that us as a society share. If you don’t visit a specific local park do you think that you shouldn’t pay a percentage of taxes to pay for it? Or interstate roads, etc. You have to think of the possibility that one day you could visit it or someone in society will use it. And if we all pay into it it’ll be cheaper overall for everyone. If a national park cost $300 to get into because it’s not subsidized via taxes a majority pay for, would we even go? We’d just bulldoze it all for profit. If feel the same way about insurance. If none of the healthy put in their money then only sick people would buy insurance and no one could afford it and get into debt and possibly die. Yes, taxes are more complicated but that’s an easy way to think of it.

I think yes, as a younger healthier person you wonder why you are even paying for this but later on you may need it. Insurance only works if a bunch of people pay into it and when disaster happens that pool of money helps those few out. Also I do think going to the doctor for a check up regularly is just a good thing to be safe so you catch things early on! That’s how people are surprised with cancers, etc.

As for Anna who has the bad diabetic neighbor or smoking pregnant coworker, that is not everyone in society and do you really want them to die and suffer more than they are? Yes, they are still idiots but some people can’t help themselves and need to be educated even more by a doctor or other medical professional and get check out even more. Also her premature child needs help too.

I just rambled up a storm! There is no one solution to this but I don’t know if “every man for himself” is the best. We live in a country of tons of people and not a bunch of houses who are all independent of each other so a lot of these decisions will effect so many!

Thanks for your input Natalia. Believe me, I so don’t want to be the person feeling annoyed by some how any idiot lives their lives.

Do you have affordable health insurance through work? Do you get an ACA subsidy that makes your insurance reasonable? Or are you paying through the nose, but somehow keep your compassion intact? That is really my question…For all the people that are like “Yay, universal coverage!” (like I used to be) Is it because you have the luck of not being impacted so much by the negative side of ACA?

A family member just admitted to me last night that they are going uninsured. Because WITH subsidy their insurance for four healthy people is $1200. For insurance that has a $10K deductible with no copays. WHO can afford that. $1000 per month and zero benefit until you’ve forked over another 10K for care. On approx 80K for a family of four, who are very hard working, and live within their means. I think going without insurance is reprehensible!…and yet, I totally understand their predicament. Is this NOT happening in other parts of the country? What’s going on in your bubbles, ya’ll?

Strange place to discuss this- but this forum is always very respectful so I’m inclined to jump in!

I’m in a similar situation (made the move to self employed) but I don’t begrudge the cost of insurance. It is insurance in case of a major unforeseen health issue. I am young, healthy with no preexsisting conditions or plans for children. But if I decided to have a child or have an accident or got some horrible disease- I like knowing there is a safety net in place to protect my future financial health. The Obamacare fine is less than a years worth of health insurance- About 60% the cost for me.

I make sure to get all my health screening every year whether or not I have medical issues to address. At the least, my PA and I know what my baseline health is and can monitor changes that could be concerning. I never had healthcare under the previous rules, and took advantage of the healthcare under parents until 26 while I got my degrees. I do not know what the cost to be healthy and insured was before Obamacare- but I know that the free cost of being uninsured is a risk I will never choose.

I guess the debate for me is at that point. Do we have a system that lets everyone freely choose their levels of health coverage at the future unknown cost of major medical catastrophes, or do we require (or provide) a baseline level of coverage for everyone that anticipates the risk of major medical costs? I wish there was more debate and understanding at the real costs and risk of either extreme. And more latitude to adjust within the current system to lifestyle changes like Paige expressed.

Paige, so sorry for your situation, but just wanted to make sure you knew that if you do decide to buy insurance, if your household earns between 100-400% of Federal Poverty level (poverty level for HH of 1 is $11.7K and for HH of 4 its $24.25K), you qualify for subsidies/tax credits to help towards the cost of buying health insurance. Also if you are in a state that expanded Medicaid and again your Household (however you define it) earns 138% of poverty level for that household size, insurance is basically free.

I’m in the same boat, we got hit over the head with this during the Thanksgiving holiday, giving us 5 days to choose between 2 plans. One of which my take home pay wouldn’t even cover (I’m going on 10 years, FT, with the same company), or would cover but I’d have to live in my car, so I had to take the one with an $8000 deductible. Now I just pray no one in my family of 3 gets sick this year. I can’t afford my out of pocket premium plus a medical bill.
I don’t like Trump, but I don’t like feeling squeezed until there is no juice left to run out of me.
If anyone had the answer to this I’d love to hear it.

Is no one else in the country getting squeezed like this?!! Or are you okay with the squeeze because of higher order morals/values. It’s ugly to discover I do in fact have a price point at which I begin thinking “fend for yourselves you savages!”

I totally understand from where you are coming and your “judgey” feelings — me too. My husband and I did and do everything “right” and still our youngest child is profoundly disabled, medically fragile, and will die. So yes, when I see people knowingly engaging in stupid, harmless, expensive behaviors I want to rail “do you know how lucky you are?” But I don’t.

Not going into the specifics of the ACA, part of living in a society is being part of a whole, even if we never partake. Like the people who remain childless paying taxes which support schools (although we all benefit from others education), or those of us lucky enough to never need firefighters or EMTs still paying taxes which fund those services. But I would never begrudge someone whose house burned down from calling 911, and I can tell from your words neither would you.

The late Senator Ted Kennedy said his biggest political regret was when, during Nixon’s administration, there was a proposal for universal health care he didn’t sign because it wasn’t “perfect.” He later understood, too late, there will never be anything perfect, but at least that proposal had been a step in the right direction.

That’s how I feel about the ACA. It is not perfect, but at least it’s a step in the right direction.

We had our child participate in a trial for an experimental drug which, unfortunately, made his condition worse. The clinicians and researchers learned from his deterioration and that drug has gone on to help a lot of other children. While I am so happy for them, of course I am still desperately sad that my child not only wasn’t helped, he was hurt. His loss helped many other children, like the brave, generous family member who donates their loved one’s organs. Good for others can come from horrible things borne by us.

And it sucks.

I hope you stay healthy and that the government fulfills their promises of coming up with something better.

Man Dux, I needed to hear that so badly. My compassion is found. You are an amazing human, and have just elevated my game. Hug that beautiful boy of yours for me and give yourself a pat on the back for being an incredible human.

Everyone, even people who get work provided health insurance, are feeling the increase. In 2013, I paid $2.2k/yr for insurance (for just me) and there were zero deductibles and after $15/25 copays (and $100 for ER) all other care was 100% covered (yes I know very generous). Now my family of 3 pays $9.6K/yr (thats a 45.8% increase), and its not longer 100% covered. Theres a dedutible of $1000 and after that is reached, it only covers 90% of cost until a max out of pocket of $5000. So max out of pocket is almost $15K. And this is after my Fortune 500 employer is subsidizing my insurance. I think its naive to think this is just because of ACA. Its because hospitals and insurers continue to pass on the cost of medicare cuts/taxes (which are used to fund ACA) to us, the patients, so they can continue to make money. Look at the stock performance of all the major insurers. And as one of the Annas said because healthy people don’t get insurance, so the insurance exchanges risk pools are lopsided. Governors of states that didn’t expand Medicaid (the Federal Govt was going to fund it 100%) should also be taken to task (this is why elections are important) for causing undue grief for the people who earn too much to qualify for regular Medicaid, but too little to pay for insurance. Obama clearly had a good idea, but was afraid of really alienating Republicans by going too far towards true Universal Healthcare. Instead of tweaking things around the margins, to correct these flaws, this complete repeal/replace is going to end up making it more expensive with more out of pocket costs (although its pretty clear Republicans don’t really have a legitimate plan yet)

The ACA was supposed to be a private-sector-friendly solution for getting the United States closer to universal health insurance, because there was no way that congress was going to vote for actual universal health insurance. In theory, health insurance companies are still supposed to make profits under the ACA (even if the profits were slightly smaller than before). What has happened in reality, is that not all of the insurance companies are seeing the profits they expected and so they are raising premiums or pulling out of state exchanges (let’s not forget the premiums in many places were rising even faster before the ACA). There are several reasons the profits haven’t held up. One factor is that more sick people than healthy people signed up (and a lot of healthy people are still refusing to sign up). Many of these sick people were not eligible for any health insurance at all before the ACA, so the ACA has literally been life saving for them.

And not all of these people are “at fault” for their ailments. One of my closest friends was born with a heart defect that requires he have a pacemaker and undergo surgery every so often to keep his heart working correctly. He is otherwise healthy and takes cares of himself. But his preexisting condition meant that he couldn’t buy insurance once he aged off his mother’s plan. I also read of someone who got cancer while they were without health insurance, and then couldn’t buy any insurance because they had cancer. Do we really want to go back to that?

Another major reason the ACA hasn’t worked as planned is that many republican governors refused expanding Medicaid in their states. The ACA said if states changed eligibility requirements for Medicaid to increase the number of people who would be able to get Medicaid in their state, the federal government would pay for 100% of the expanded Medicaid costs through 2016 and 90% until 2022 (and shared costs thereafter). If every state participated in the expansion, half of all uninsured Americans would have been covered. This may sound like just another way for federal tax dollars to foot poor people’s health insurance bills, but the truth is that this would have SAVED all of us a lot of money by allowing people to get necessary (and much cheaper) preventative care, instead of going to the emergency room where taxpayers end up having to pay for the hospital bills the uninsured can’t cover. Additionally, premiums on the exchanges would be lower, because many of the poorest and sickest people would be getting Medicaid instead, leaving a healthier (and cheaper to cover) pool left on the exchange.

Thanks Emma. I am in a red state that has a medicaid gap. I’ve seen first hand how the gap has hurt some of my clients. Most of them are young married people, students typically. It was amazing to see the poorest of the poor be too rich for Medicare and too poor for ACA. Children had gap coverage, but adults still do not. I hadn’t thought of the “cost” of the gap though. Uninsured people truly are expensive. I once audited a public hospital on the Mexico border and was horrified by the emergency room costs being footed by taxpayers for services that should have been taken care of via preventative care.

No, I definitely don’t want to go back to the days where you could be denied coverage for pre-existing conditions. The question is, can we have our cake, eat it too, and still afford it? I was surprised that Trump *says* he will keep the “no denial for pre-existing conditions”. That has been the good of the ACA for sure, but it is also incredibly expensive. It will be very interesting to see what happens. I am glad we can have a civilized discussion acknowledging the good, bad and obvious. The obvious being this will be very complicated to solve.

The ACA was finally a compromise to the Republicans and the Profit Based Health Insurance power structure. My understanding from a lot of reading was Obama hoped that getting a questionable vehicle for universal health care on the road(no matter how flawed) would create that Foot in the door to an expansion of Medicare-taking the profit motive out of the equation. Not affecting the incomes of Physicians,nurses et al-just removing the 10% profit margin required by the Health Care Insurance industry.
They are running like rodents cause they are finding actually covering care and still pulling down the Big Bucks isn’t as easy where everybody uses Health Care whereas not everybody cracks up their Car or has a House burn down. Insurance is a Bet that you won’t have a loss or claim. Does this concept work for Health Care?

I agree that insurance is heavily to blame, and costs were rising anyway. Costs rise when consumers don’t have a clue what they are paying.

I am seeing this with insurance premiums as well. Those who are cozily covered by ACA don’t care that premiums have risen – because for them they haven’t.

My mom works in a medical office and admits that prices don’t reflect the true economics – they are bumped up to whatever the insurance will reimburse. In some areas this is hurting doctors because reimbursement rates are too low (many private providers won’t accept medicaid anymore) but she says more times than not, the reimbursements are way higher than they should be….and of course her doctors will take the full amount. They’d be fools otherwise. Getting rid of the invisible middle man would be so awesome, but seems nearly impossible unless we move to a single payer system.

And as for the insurance companies going under…that has been a big problem for the consumer. Fewer choices (or none) in a market means no competition and worse, more expensive insurance. So unless we do away with insurance completely, I want a few companies to find it profitable to operate in my city so I can at least have some choices.

Anna, thank you for asking this question in the first place. Everyone else who responded, thank you for an informative, highly civilized discussion. I’ve learned a lot.
Anna, I have a question for you that I’ve often wondered. Before the ACA, what sort of health insurance did you have? Did you have employer-provided insurance or simply go without health insurance? How would you personally feel about a complete repeal of the ACA?

I am self employed and have bought private health insurance pre-ACA from the main provider in my area. Pre-ACA we had four insurers to choose from, and hundreds of choices. Now we have two insurers and and probably 25 choices at all levels Platinum through Bronze. I am still with the same insurance that I had pre-ACA…but the cost has doubled, and the deductibles have almost tripled. I always liked shopping insurance on the private market because there were so many choices to suit your personal situation. (But there were NONE if you had a serious pre-existing condition such as diabetes, or you paid through the nose.)

Costs were rising at about 20% each year pre-ACA so I do know the problem isn’t solely because of ACA. This year, I had a 45% increase and deductibles and max OOPs soared. As they had the year before. ACA has benefited some of my extended family members, but based on what it has done to the market and prices in my area it is hard for me to imagine something being worse for personally. I have really mixed emotions about scrapping it from a society driven standpoint. It is so strange to be at a point where I am on the precipice of having to “abandon” caring about how my neighbor is doing, because I can’t fend for my kids.

I am solidly middle class, so could I find away to pay for the garbage insurance being offered in my area? Yes. It would entail dropping any lessons for my kids,no pre-school, no vacations, no out of pocket infertility treatments, dropping my charitable donations, and hoping my 12 year old car doesn’t have any car problems, ever. Oh, and most importantly, hoping and praying I don’t actually have a health problem because my best case deductible is $6000 per person. ACA alleviated these “choices” for lower middle class people, and by shifting it up the income scale by about 20K. I guess the take away for me is greater empathy for people who can’t afford health care.

Thank you, Anna, for explaining it further. Since I don’t know anyone who is self-employed and in your shoes, I was ignorant about the realities. This helps me understand the debate far better. I know only three people on ACA. One qualifies for subsidies, and the other two are cancer survivors with pre-existing conditions. It seems that, if I didn’t have employer insurance, I would be in your shoes. My sympathies.

Because it’s easy for me and I’m terrified it will be reality – Can you not imagine that one of your children is sick or your husband is and you can not buy any insurance? So you go bankrupt paying for medical costs. Depending on the situation maybe your family goes bankrupt trying to help you. That would be worse. It happens all the time.

It doesn’t even have to be that catastrophic – you have no insurance for any of you – your children break some bones, have some teeth issues – you get basic treatment in the emergency room but can’t afford proper follow up care and their health is affected for the rest of their lives. That’s worse than being poor because you are paying for insurance.

Everyone should have health insurance in the United States. The way it’s going maybe soon no one but the upper classes will have health insurance. I don’t see how taking it away from other people makes me any better off. America has enough billions for wars and walls, there’s enough money for everyone. If other people’s health is being hurt it doesn’t make you any better off and the money sure isn’t going into your pocket.

Great point about America having enough money for walls and wars. That really resonated with me.

I don’t know if you didn’t read all my prior posts, or misread them. It is hard for me to imagine my personal INSURANCE situation being worse because I cannot afford the crappy plans that are being offered. $1200 per month for insurance that doesn’t even kick in a co-pay until you’ve spent $6000 per person? I can’t afford that. And that is the most affordable plan offered in my market. Can I imagine my life situation being much worse? Of course I can. I am self aware enough to be very grateful for the middle class life I was nothing more than lucky to be born into, and lucky enough to improve upon.

I want all the things you want! I suspect our values are much more in line than you give me credit for, I just wanted to express my frustration with insurance for me as it currently is. I want people at a lower economic level than me to have insurance, I just never thought I would have to give up my own to subsidize others, and I am telling the ugly truth, that I feel myself being cornered into an “every man for himself” mentality that is new to me, and think is the “disease” of the right wing.

Love love love your site. I come here almost every day. One thing recently, the ad on the bottom pops up several times when I read your post and I have to click on it to go away more than once. Is this just me? It has prevented me from wanting to finish reading the posts because I have to x it out too many times. That combined with the ads that are moving on the sides make it very cluttered with ads.

I love the blanket ladder as much as you do, but when I went to Target to buy it with my 2.5 year old son, he was convinced it was a “fireman ladder” that he could climb! Ahk! I got too nervous about the idea of him climbing it, I couldn’t bring myself to buy it. I’m curious what your children think of it and how you talk to them about not using it to climb and play on, as I’d love to have one in our home. Thank you for the advice!

I’m curious if you considered or were advised to remove the wallpaper before putting the house on the market. While lovely, it’s also quite specific. Is this something you’ll just deal with in closing if the buyer has a problem with it? Perhaps this isn’t really much of an issue at the price point of your home, as any buyer could likely afford to have it removed. DIY wallpaper removal might in fact be one of the nine circles of hell (been there, done that, never again.)

I hope you never, ever stop collaborating with Target. One of my favorite parts of this blog is that I get to feast my eyes on beautiful things and then can actually afford to buy the things. I need you to curate items for me and teach me how to execute with vision. I love that I can furnish my house and still have money left over for other things in life.

I don’t think the pillow fort looks cheap. I think it looks great. With kids–they destroy everything anyway so why pay a premium?

I love your house–but I don’t think it’s family friendly. All those outside stairs and no yard would turn me away. It’s also why you moved. So I hope that this ADORABLE styling of this room isn’t a detractor for some buyers.

In my grandmother’s house, she had kept this very specific yellow butterfly wall paper. It had been there since the 1950’s and it was still in great shape. Last year, butterfly wallpaper was all over the design magazines. I saw it in House Beautiful and had to laugh. When my grandmother passed, we just kept the house as is. My grandmother had great taste and most of it was very cool and naturally mid century–except for the fancy polyester floral sofas in the sitting area purchased in the 1980’s. Anyway–the new owners of the house loved the wallpaper and had a little girl. They kept it and now their daughter is enjoying the room where my mother grew up. I hope that this wallpaper has a similar turn.

This wallpaper could be styled whimsical adult guest room too though. Or it could be a cool work from home creative office. Craft room anyone?

Even if the new owners don’t love this wallpaper, the rest of the house is perfect so I think Emily will get top dollar. I hope so, because that will give her more money for awesome content in the new house and for my enjoyment.

I’m curious about your comment that a daybed makes the room look bigger than a twin bed would. Why is this? I’ve been debating twin bed vs. daybed for my daughter’s room, and would love a designer’s perspective on this.

I love your nursery, but the wallpaper is so expensive! I actually don’t understand the cost of wallpaper, it seems like it would cost like $4000 to do a room this size. Can anyone else explain wallpaper pricing? Is one roll big enough to do a big chunk of the wall? Emily, would you consider sharing what you paid for this? Thanks!

Love your blog and your style! I just created a nursery for our very long awaited first child (little baby girl just turned 3 weeks old!) and always thought of decorating her nursery like a teenager – a little grown up, a dash of whimsy! I love this room!

For selling we styled this room more for a big kid since we needed to bring the crib over to our new house. Plus we were doing this bedding series with Target that would look so much better on a daybed than a crib, obviously, so we switched things up and man it looks good

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Emily is a stylist, author and T.V. host with a strong commitment to vintage inspired approachable home style for every single person. Perfection is boring; Let’s get weird. learn more

Interior Design Blog by Emily Henderson

I started this interior design blog in 2010 as a journal of my style and home projects with the belief that design should be approachable, informational and accessible no matter what budget.

As a home style expert who has a strong commitment to peeling back the intimidating layers of the world of home decor, and showing how every person can have a beautiful home that represents their personality, no matter what the budget.

After styling for magazines and catalogues for years, I started my own interior design blog, won HGTV Design Star, and have gone on to host my own hit TV show Secrets from a Stylist, Author the book STYLED, and create the design firm Emily Henderson Design.

My motto has always been to write and publish on my blog what I personally want to read about.